In other words, I get a definite impression that the White House—now occupied by a president and potentially by a vice president that nobody ever voted for—has a de facto carte blanche to order up a full-bore, top-secret military operation by U.S. Marines on any country in the world whose government happens to cross “the U.S.A.” at any given moment, even by accident or a set-up.
This might be a good thing for us to talk about when I get to Washington, because I have a feeling we’re going to hear a bit more on the subject, for good or ill, during the next year.
Meanwhile, if you’re up to it, I could probably make good use of any written reply you might want to make to this screed full of wild & ominous accusations—all of which I’m beginning to take quite seriously. But maybe I’m just paranoid, eh? Or drunk & bent … and if that’s the case, I hope you’ll clear it all up for me as soon as possible—on any basis you feel comfortable with: confidential, off-the-record or anything else—at least until we talk again & come to a better understanding; the same assumption that led me to write you instead of Jim Johnson will serve, for now, as a presumption of confidentiality. I’m far more concerned with getting coherent answers than I am with whipping up a headline for RS or anyone else. OK for now …
Hunter
TO FRANK MANKIEWICZ:
Prodding his friend to run for president in 1976, Thompson threatened to do so himself otherwise.
July 14, 1975
Woody Creek, CO
Frank …
I’d planned to discuss this subject with you at lunch last week in Washington, but you brought so many uninvited guests that it was impossible to speak freely or even intelligibly, given the wretched circumstances…. Jesus, it seems to me that anybody who’s lived in Washington as long as you have should know The Rules by now… but what the hell???
Anyway, my quick survey of who’s doing & thinking what vis-à-vis ’76 led me to the almost intolerably weird conviction that you should kick out the jams and get your campaign organized at once … and if you think I’m kidding, just ask around; if you keep a straight face, like I did, you might be surprised at the answers you’ll get….
And don’t give me any of your kinky shit about “what campaign?” Because the next time we talk I’m going to ask you, for the record, just exactly why you might or might not lack the courage of your convictions. And you should also consider Josh; the poor bastard can’t get a job—and neither can I, for that matter—unless you do The Right Thing, and you know what that means.
Consider your friends, Frank; you’ve always been a selfless person & a lot of people are counting on you now, in this grim & desperate hour, and also consider that if you don’t do it, I might … and from what I’ve seen & heard thus far, I’m half-inclined to jump in if you don’t …which might mean that you’d be forced to ask me for a job in January. Either one of us could win the New Hampshire primary (and probably most of the other linchpins, for that matter), and I doubt if we’d even need those matching funds to do it.
But of course I might be wrong, Frank. You’ll want to look back on the record before you make a decision on this … but current circumstances have forced me to give it quite a bit of thought and I have a feeling that 1976 will be the Year of the Geek.
Let me know on this ASAP … and while you’re at it, remember that they laughed at Thomas Edison, too.
Cazart,
Hunter
PS—thank Marilyn for the help inre: Udall;25 her scheduling worked out & I got all the time I needed with him.
Selah.
TO LOREN JENKINS, NEWSWEEK:
In July 1964, fresh out of the Peace Corps and armed with a Ph.D. in government, fellow Aspen-area resident Loren Jenkins had appealed to Thompson for advice on becoming a successful journalist. A decade later Jenkins—now a close friend as well as a foreign correspondent for Newsweek—had proved quite helpful throughout Thompson’s travels in Southeast Asia.
July 14, 1975
Woody Creek, CO
Loren …
Jesus christ the shitbog I fell into here, immediately on my return, makes everything I bitched about in Asia seem like a picnic-vacation by comparison. If I’d had any sense I’d have stayed in Laos instead of coming back to this nightmare—most of which involves a personal war with Rolling Stone (Wenner) over his unannounced decision to fire me (& thereby cancel my medical/health insurance) while I was en route to Saigon.
Yeah …I know that sounds beyond the pale, but it’s true, and he very reluctantly admits it, which effectively destroys our whole relationship and puts me in the ranks of the broke & unemployed.
Jesus, it’s dawn & I have a dentist appt. in 3 hours, so I’ll write a real letter either tonight or tomorrow—but in the meantime I note you’re “leaving for India,” but you don’t say when & I don’t want you leaving without doing something with that goddamn typewriter … and I suppose the best thing is to send it over here by the cheapest possible means that will still make sure it arrives. If you can sell it there for anything near the purchase price, give Jeannie 10% of whatever she can get—but if that won’t work, just send the bastard along to Woody Creek & I’ll try to sell it here. OK for now; I’ll sleep for a few hours & give you a better outline either tonite or …or … shit, all I’m really sure of is that I’m getting out of journalism as soon as possible. All the humor has gone out of that “fear & loathing” logo.
Hunter
TO LYNN NESBIT:
Still uncertain of his status with Rolling Stone, Thompson sought advice from his agent about which writing project to focus on next.
July 15, 1975
Woody Creek, CO
Lynn …
If it’s any comfort to you, I just finished 15 (almost) publishable pages on my (last) week in Washington & my opening impressions of the ’76 campaign—which would normally be sent to RS under the title “Fear & Loathing on Embassy Row,” but which under the circumstances will probably be held for inclusion in the Playboy piece—if for no other reason than I’m sure Geoffrey26 will pay for them.
And my only reason for telling you this is to reassure you that I do actually write things (pages)—and that they come as easily as they always have when I’m convinced I’m writing for money instead of an argument.
Which raises the issue of Jann’s mention of his “contract” with me in that coke-jangled letter of July 1 (see pg. 2, graf #1). Perhaps we should try to determine just exactly what “contract” he has in mind, because if it exists I don’t know anything about it and my (possible) ignorance might cause me some serious trouble when it comes to dealing with the bastard for money. Any off-the-wall reference to “a contract” from Wenner should not be ignored, because his instinct is to disregard contracts of any sort on the assumption that the lawyers he keeps on retainer from PM&S can outlast the lawyers any plaintiff can keep hired on a fee basis, and that in the long run any writer, editor, etc. with grounds for legal action be worn down & terminally discouraged by the simple expedient of dragging out the legal process for so long that nobody operating with limited money-resources can afford to hang on to the end—which is usually true, but his record in cases that have actually gone to trial suggests that it pays to hang on.
I mention this only after finishing 15 good pages and because I think I should know precisely what he’s talking about when he mentions “a contract” with me—because if I was working under some kind of contract when I went to Saigon, it seems odd that he’d be able to fire me without any kind of notification at almost the same time he was calling me about the assignment.
Or maybe the “contract” he refers to is the one he mentioned in that cable that was printed in More—which puts him in a queer position if he claims the cable was real & tries to sue them for stealing it. If it was a phoney cable he can’t sue them, and if it was real (& it was) he owes me $5000 for almost anything coherent I send him, on top of the stuff I sent from Saigon … so keep this in mind & try to determine what he meant by his reference t
o his “contract” with me, because if he can take me off the payroll and cancel my medical insurance & cancel all my RS credit cards & still keep my name on the masthead without breaching whatever “contract” he thinks he has with me, I’m in serious fucking trouble and Clancy just bought a Magnum-load of grief.
On other fronts, could you try to find out from Pop. Library how the Campaign ’72 book is selling? I’ve never received a dime from there for either that one or Vegas (as far as I recall without asking Sandy, who’s asleep) and I’d like to have some money-figures from C-72 before I make a final decision on either a book or articles or both for C-76.
What I’m looking for here is some kind of a financial comparison between Vegas and C-72 (F&L: On the Campaign Trail ’72)—in order to arrive at some sort of at least tentatively reliable judgement on the relative merits of “Guts Ball” vs. C-76. The prospect of having to work with Jann for a whole year of intense campaign coverage pretty well cancels out the high of being personally involved in a campaign—or at least any campaign except Frank’s—so the question of covering C-76 then boils down almost entirely to money, and without any figures for the C-72 book (keeping in mind that I paid $32,500 of my own expenses) I can’t make a proper judgement on the value of getting myself locked into this next campaign.
As far as I can tell, Vegas was a financial bust … but I can’t be sure of this without some help in the translation of these goddamn “statements” that appear in my mail from time to time. I don’t understand them … so could you possibly give me a written opinion as to the money earned from each, so I can have a solid basis for deciding whether to do “Guts Ball” or C-76?
Thanks,
Hunter
TO SANDY BERGER:
Thompson sought the counsel of Sandy Berger, his attorney friend from the McGovern campaign, on dealing with Washington Post Style section writer Sally Quinn’s serious misquote of him in her new book, which was excerpted in the August 1975 issue of Esquire.
July 22, 1975
Woody Creek, CO
Dear Sandy …
Please take a look at the Aug. issue of Esquire (pg. 124) & tell me what kind of legal position I’d have vs. Esquire, Sally Quinn or her book publisher (the book is due for publication either very soon or maybe it’s already out, in which case the problem is worse …) vis-à-vis her false, unattributed & entirely unverifiable “quote” to the effect that I’ve said “only” (or “at least”) “45% of what I write is true.” I’d rather not get into any lawsuit on this, but as a professional writer/journalist I think I have to do something, because a libel like that could not only cripple my income for the rest of my life, but also cause extreme damage to my reputation even after my death.
I fully expect you to bill me for any time you put into this, but before we do anything formally I’d like to see what Sally can do about either changing the quote (see enc. carbon of my letter to her) or just knocking it out of the book. I’ve been through this shit many times with Random House, and I know they can change anything in any edition of a book not already in the bookstores—but only if they’re convinced it’s necessary, because it’s very expensive to change words once they’re engraved on the plates and the editors will fight any changes unless the company lawyers lean on them—and that means the threat of a serious and money-meaningful lawsuit they can’t win—and this one is a flat-out loser, I think, because of the genuinely crippling (to me) nature of the false quote & also because I’ve never said a thing like that, not even as a joke. I’ve mentioned various percentages (see enc.) at times when I’ve been asked about my Vegas book, but always in very vague terms and always to confuse the issue of fiction and/or non-fiction in a book so potentially incriminating that I’d never claim it was 100% true.
But I’ve never even considered the idea of percentages when I’ve talked about my political journalism. I’ve explained things like my Muskie/Ibogaine fantasy by simply pointing out that anybody who reads carefully will see that it’s worded as a fantasy (or a “rumor”), but this bullshit about “45% truth” is likely to haunt me for a hell of a long time—and especially when it comes out right now, when I’m in the midst of negotiations for a book on the ’76 campaign that Wenner (before Straight Arrow folded) had already agreed to pay $150,000 for … and I wouldn’t blame any book publisher or editor who didn’t know me personally (as Wenner did) for not understanding my prevailing sense of humor and getting very nervous about signing a book contract for a $150,000 advance to a writer quoted in Esquire & in god knows how many thousands of books on the market right now as saying “at least 45% of what (he) wrote was true.” Shit, nobody would pay a writer for 55% lies—not even in the Style section of the Post.
In any case, I’m getting goddamn tired of being libeled, mis-quoted and generally discredited by these fucking hacks in the Post, the New Times, The Village Voice and now Esquire, who call themselves “straight” reporters—like that asshole from The Wall Street Journal who couldn’t even get his figures right when he was told, first-hand, by a sane & reliable participant in our vote at AV’s on the Demo nominee … or maybe Rick got it wrong, but that’s beside the point & this one doesn’t matter anyway.
The real point is that I can’t sit back & ignore this kind of nit-picking bullshit about my credibility as a journalist much longer, without making a public example of somebody & getting into some public show & tell about “truth percentages.” There are a lot of levels of truth, as we both know, in almost any story, and my argument with the so-called “straight” journalists is that I tend to deal on levels (or areas) that “straight” journalism can’t handle because you can’t always find two “reliable sources” to verify what you know is true—and that’s the fork in the journalistic road where I parted company with those bastards a long time ago.
It might be interesting, in fact, to force some of these “straight” yo-yos into a position where they have to match their own “truth percentage” with mine … and unless we can get Sally to take appropriate & satisfactory action vis-à-vis that “45%” figure in Esquire (& also in her book), I’m inclined to stop smiling about all these “gonzo jokes” and kick a few people in the balls.
Anyway, I’m serious about taking legal action on this Esquire/Quinn business, if only to stop the drift of what I consider a very dangerous tendency that will ultimately discredit me as a journalist & thereby stunt the growth of a journalistic breakthrough that I can’t really define or even claim to represent, except that I know it should be defended at least in principle … which is not a hell of a lot different from the kind of breakthrough we’re still looking for in politics.
Yeah … and so much for philosophy. What I need at the moment is a change or deletion in Sally’s book, and if that means stopping the presses or yanking the goddamn thing out of the bookstores, so be it—because unless you tell me I’m wrong on legal grounds, page 124 of the August issue of Esquire contains one of the most actionable libel suits I’ve ever looked at, and my mood right now is to kick out the jams & make somebody answer. Or pay. And on that front I’d just as soon jerk Esquire out by the roots, along with Sally and her book publisher—because there’s no possible way they can defend that “45%” gig without hiring perjured witnesses. I’ve been accused of a lot of things that weren’t entirely true but which I saw reason to ignore, but this is not one of them.
Call me ASAP on this. And if you don’t want to handle it, please put me onto somebody who can—or tell me why I’m wrong.
Thanks,
Hunter
TO SALLY QUINN, THE WASHINGTON POST:
Explaining the disastrous repercussions her misquote of him could have on his career, Thompson politely asked Quinn to set the record straight.
July 22, 1975
Woody Creek, CO
Dear Sally …
Jesus christ, I thought you always preened yourself with the notion that you always bad-rapped people on purpose, instead of by accident—or at least I assume that false & brutall
y defamatory quote (in the current Esq. excerpt from your book) about me once having said that at least forty-five percent of what I write is true must have been an accident, because it didn’t fit at all with the generally humane & friendly context of the other things you said about me… which I appreciate, & thanx….
But Sally, let me ask you to put yourself in my place for just long enough to wonder how you’d feel if you were a professional free-lance journalist & no editor wanted to fuck you and you got stuck with a completely unattributed and unverifiable quote to the effect that “at least 45% of what (you) wrote was true.” That’s a very nasty rumor for a journalist to have to live with, right? And it could have a very nasty effect on my income for the rest of my life, right? And if I didn’t consider you a friend I wouldn’t be writing you this letter, asking you to knock that alleged quote out of the book, right?
Yeah … I’d sue you, Esquire & the book publisher for immense damages to my reputation & my future income … because I never said that to anybody: I may be crazy, Sally, but I’m not stupid. If you were an editor, would you pay for serious political copy from a writer who’d allegedly said a thing like that?
Fear and Loathing in America Page 86
